


mourn the years

by sparkycap



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, Eventual Happy Ending, Grief/Mourning, Kid Fic, M/M, Military
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-09-23 15:56:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9664370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparkycap/pseuds/sparkycap
Summary: Carwood met Ron when he was nineteen years old, and he never really looked anywhere else. It was easy to do that when they were in college and then living together and then getting married. It got a little harder when Ron died overseas and left him with nothing but a set of dog tags, a stack of letters, and adoption paperwork they hadn't gotten around to filling out yet. Eventually he fills it out anyway.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone worried about the WIP status, this fic is about 99% complete. The whole thing is written and ready minus some editing, so I'll post each part as I fix them up/get them beta-ed. 
> 
> And on that note, thanks to whip-pan for, well, everything about this. Both the wonderful beta job and the fact that it exists in the first place - because I told her about the idea with no intention of writing it, and then she screamed so much I wrote the whole first part in one night. And then she kept screaming, so I kept writing, and that's pretty much the only reason we're here. Thank you for being the only reason I ever get anything done.

Every week since Dick and Nix moved back to Boston, they’ve had a standing Sunday dinner.

Not everyone makes it every time, but there are a few constants: they start with too much food, and they never have leftovers. Nix starts drinking at exactly five o’clock and somehow only ends the night tipsy. Webster always brings the rolls.

And no matter what, there are the rules: everyone must bring something. If Buck is there, he must be seated as far from Nix as possible. If Lieb and Web are both there, they must be seated in different rooms if possible. If Bill is cooking, Lieb must not be. If Babe is cooking, Bill must be supervising. If Babe is cooking and Bill is supervising and Lieb is anywhere in the house, both Gene and Toye must be present to diffuse the inevitable situation.

This week, Ron hasn’t been to Sunday dinner in six months. Carwood knows this as fact, because he starts doing the math as soon as his phone starts ringing. Eight months since they’d gotten the news he’d be deployed, seven since they’d found out where he was going. Six months since he’d been gone one week, two weeks since they’ve heard from him.

He’d stepped outside to take the call, umbrella in hand and not minding the rain.

The umbrella ends up unopened and cast aside.

He doesn’t go back inside.

The door opens, after a while, which is about the time Carwood realizes he’s on the ground. He doesn’t need to look up to know who it is, not after he hears the heavy tread of his boots through the rain and the way the door slams behind him.

Nix slides down the wall to sit next to him on the wet ground. “Is it—”

“Yeah,” Carwood says.

Nix nods hard, fumbling his flask out of his pocket. “And is he—”

“Yeah,” Carwood repeats.

“Fuck,” Nix says, voice shaking. He thumps his head back against the wall, tipping half the contents of his flask down his throat. He clenches his eyes shut and passes it to Carwood. “ _Fuck_.”

Carwood finishes the whiskey. Then he shuts up and waits. There’s more to say, more people to tell, but he’s busy staring straight ahead and searching for the willpower to breathe, let alone move and think.

Nix isn’t looking at him either. Eventually, he asks, “How bad was it?”

“They—” Carwood stops. He clears his throat once, then again when his voice doesn’t come out any less raspy. After a moment he gives up and answers, thick and hoarse, “They don’t know. They didn’t find a body.”

“But they’re sure—” Nix cuts himself off, shaking his head.

Carwood nods. “They found his dog tags. Some of his uniform. A lot—a lot of blood.”

“His blood,” Nix says dully. Carwood looks at him, confused, and Nix finally meets his eyes. “It’s his. You shouldn’t… the sooner you stop distancing yourself—"

“What?” Carwood laughs, a little strangled and maybe a little hysterical and definitely the most bitter he can ever remember being in his life. “What, the sooner I can move on? The sooner I can get over it?”

Nix falls silent. Then, after a moment, he offers, “Sorry.”

Just like that, Carwood loses the energy to be upset with him. “You’re right,” he says. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

“Yeah, well. What the fuck do I know,” Nix mutters.

The door opens and closes again. Carwood looks up, blinking hard when a raindrop hits him in the eye. He blinks again and feels it slide down his cheek, along with what might be more rain and what might be tears. Dick and Harry step outside.

Dick takes stock of both of their faces, of the phone still clutched in Carwood’s hand and the empty flask lying on the ground. He closes his eyes, just briefly, like he already knows.

Harry straightens, setting his jaw, stubbornly refusing to be apprehensive. “Just tell us.”

“Ron’s dead,” Nix says bluntly. He kicks his leg out, sending the empty flask clattering sadly into a shallow puddle. “We need more whiskey.”

“We need to tell the boys,” Carwood realizes.

“ _You_ don’t need to do anything,” Dick says. “Let Harry take you home, Nix and I will handle it.”

Carwood shakes his head, sitting up a little straighter. “No. No, they’re going to be upset, I have to—”

“Lip, come on,” Harry says. Carwood ignores him, pushing himself to his feet against the building, hand slipping on the wet brick.

Nix blinks himself out his daze at the movement next to him. He looks up, eyes narrowed and eyebrows drawn together. He reaches out and tries to grab onto Carwood. “You’re—Lip, you’re bleeding.”

Carwood moves out of Nix’s reach and wipes his scraped palm against his pants. “It should come from me.”

“Lip,” Harry tries, one more time. Carwood pushes forward, refusing to look at any of them. Dick sets a hand on his shoulder, and he shrugs him off, uncharacteristically violent.

Then Dick sighs. He puts his hand back where it was and says simply, “Carwood.”

It shuts all of them up. Carwood stills.

“Don’t,” he says. “Don’t call me that.”

It’s easier to turn and leave after that. He doesn’t say a word when Harry catches up, but he doesn’t try to send him away either.

Unless it counts when, five minutes into walking through the rain even though they both have cars, he says dully, “You should be with Kitty.”

“Kitty doesn’t know yet,” Harry says.

“You know,” Carwood says.

“I’m where I need to be.” Harry sticks a cigarette between his lips and struggles a moment to light it in the downpour.

Carwood sighs, looking up to the sky and blinking away rain or tears. “You got another of those?”

Any other day, this would be where Harry reminds him he doesn’t smoke.

Today he lights one up and hands it over.

…

Nine months ago it was summer.

Carwood woke up at eight o’clock, some unspecific Saturday in July, and Ron was next to him. Ron was just on the edge of not quite awake—the way he got when his training simply wouldn’t let him sleep any longer, but the lazy bliss of the bed was too alluring to do more than stumble to the bathroom and the kitchen and back. It was a habit of his, one Carwood could always recognize by the open bathroom door, the half-empty glass of water on the nightstand, the sleepy way Ron smiled at him when they made eye contact.

“Hey,” Ron said quietly, rubbing a thumb across the back of Carwood’s hand. They hadn’t fallen asleep like that, he knew—they’d fallen asleep with the sheet kicked down to their calves, feet sticking out and tangled together, not touching above the waist. Ron had taken his hand either sometime in the night, which Carwood wouldn’t bet on—when Ron moved in his sleep, it was to roll full body into Carwood and cling—or first thing when he got back in bed this morning.

He couldn’t hold back a smile at the thought, using the hold to tug Ron forward, until he fell most of the way onto Carwood’s chest. Carwood wrapped both arms around him, something it was too hot for any time other than this early in the morning, when the budding heat could still be called pleasant warmth, and kissed the side of his face. “Morning.”

Ron pressed his mouth to Carwood’s bare shoulder and let out a content sigh. “You know what I was thinking about?”

Carwood hummed, nosing through Ron’s bedhead. “Hope you’re about to say morning sex.”

Ron perked up. “Not quite. Kind of the opposite, but now that you mention it—“

“Hold on, now,” Carwood said, laughing. He rolled them over when Ron tried to sit up, getting Ron on his back and settling over him. Ron went easily and relaxed under Carwood’s weight, and for a moment Carwood forgot what he was doing. The unguarded way Ron looked up at him, his eyes warm and focused just on him, like he knew exactly where he was and wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, took his breath away. It took him a couple tries before he managed to say, “What exactly is the opposite of that?”

“Opposite isn’t exactly the word,” Ron said vaguely.

“Then what is the word?” Carwood asked.

“It’s more… a thing that typically prevents morning sex,” Ron said. He shifted underneath him, hands moving restlessly over his back, and for the first time it occurred to Carwood that Ron might be nervous. “Remember how Harry said last night that he and Kitty were probably going to beat us all to having kids?”

Then, while that was sinking in and Carwood was distracted by the revelation, Ron reversed their position, putting Carwood on his back and straddling his hips.

Carwood hit the mattress with a huff, not even bothering to pretend to be annoyed at Ron’s victory. In other circumstances, in the middle of another conversation, he’d make a joke about Ron showing off his fancy military training. This time he nodded up at Ron, somewhat breathless from the impact of the roll or the weight of his words, and said, “I was thinking about it too.”

“Yeah?” Ron asked, pleased. At Carwood conceding his defeat, yes, but also that they’re on the same page, in this as in everything.

“Yeah,” Carwood said. “We’ve always said one day. That day could be soon.”

“Soon,” Ron echoed. He grinned, propping his arms on the pillow above Carwood’s head and leaning over him to kiss down the bridge of his nose, and murmured, “As long as we beat Harry and Kitty.”

“Is he still bragging about beating everyone to marriage?” Carwood asked.

Ron nodded. He ducked his head further to mouth along Carwood’s jaw. “It’s unbearable.”

“I don’t know what he’s so proud of,” Carwood said. “I would have married you right out of college too, if we could have.”

“Well, sending me off to war first was much more original,” Ron said. “Marrying a decorated vet the day he got back stateside? Way better than a freshly minted elementary school teacher.”

“It’s true,” Carwood agreed. “I have so much more to brag about than the other moms at the PTA bake sale—”

Then he cut himself off, because what would have been an almost entirely insincere joke last night was, this morning, something like a possibility in the near future. He smiled widely, a smile that turned into a laugh when Ron skated their noses together and said, “We’re going to run the fuck out of those PTA meetings.”

“Soon,” Carwood repeated. Then he sobered. “Ron, we can’t—we can’t really think about this seriously until—”

Ron kissed him. “They’re just rumors right now. We’ll know for sure whether I’m going soon. Within a month.”

“If you get deployed again—”

“Then I’ll do what I have to,” Ron said. And it sounded almost innocent, like a promise, if not for his dark eyes. If not for the way he moved sometimes, waking up in the middle of the night before he quite knew where he was—like his hands had held guns more often than they’d held Carwood, and they remembered the feel of one easier than the other. He stroked a thumb over Carwood’s cheek and finished, “Whatever I have to, just like last time. And we’ll talk about this again if I get back.”

 _When_ , Carwood wanted to say then, but he didn’t. It was a prayer more than a statement. _When you get back_.

Instead he said, “And if you don’t go—”

Ron hummed, already busy smoothing a hand up Carwood’s side and kissing down the line of his throat. “Then I imagine we’ll celebrate much the same way we’re about to now.”

Carwood laughed despite himself and pushed Ron to sit up. He asked, “Think I could at least brush my teeth first?”

Ron made a show of considering, even leaned over to check his watch on the nightstand. Finally he shrugged and rolled off Carwood obligingly, landing on his back on the bed and giving Carwood a gorgeous smile. “I suppose we’ve got time.”

…

They had nine months.

It rains through most of April, and Carwood’s scraped palm doesn’t quite heal.

…

He takes a leave of absence from work that lasts until mid-May, at which point he quits his job.

It’s not that he doesn’t plan on going in, but at the last minute he realizes he can’t go back. Not there, where his friends had told his boss what happened to explain why Carwood didn’t come into work on Monday, where his coworkers would know what questions to ask when he came back. He walks all the way there the day he realizes this, only to come to a dead stop in front of the place he and Ron used to sit outside and have lunch when they could manage it.

He turns around and walks home. He sends his resignation over email.

When people ask about the wedding ring at his new job, he tells them it’s complicated.

…

A box of Ron’s things arrives in June.

Carwood leaves most of it as is. Clothes he won’t touch yet, letters he won’t read yet, stale cigarettes he won’t throw out and a lighter he doesn’t need. He switches his old watch out for Ron’s and keeps the box on the closet floor.

He wears Ron’s dog tags tucked under two layers of shirts.

…

The Fourth of July is spent in bed, head buried under the covers and curtains drawn tight.

He could probably see the fireworks from his window. For the first time in his life, he doesn’t want to.

He hears the boys outside his door all night. They don’t ask to come in, and he doesn’t offer, but he imagines both parties are a little comforted all the same. Everyone but the neighbors.

…

In August he reads the first letter.

…

_Carwood,_

_The only thing more outdated than writing letters, I think, is starting them with ‘Dear so-and-so.’ That’s probably a senseless thing to think about, but I have more free time than you’d imagine over here. Time which, despite modern technology, cannot all be spent calling home. But somehow I still can’t seem to think of anything better to do with my time than talking to you._

_I won’t send most of these. I didn’t, my first tour—I’m not sure you even knew how many I wrote. Many of them are as senseless as the opening line of this one, and many of them don’t make sense to me when I reread them in the morning. Some of them I don’t want to make sense. Especially not to you._

_That right there is a senseless thing. I’ve never needed to put things in words for you to understand them._

_It’s necessary. I couldn’t be with you otherwise, if you didn’t understand the things about myself I can’t put words to. It wouldn’t be fair to you. But there are things about this place I don’t want you to know. I’m glad you’re not here. I’m not glad I’m not with you, but I’m glad you’re not here._

…

In September, Carwood smokes the stale cigarettes and puts Ron’s clothes in the bottom drawer of his dresser.

…

The house can get stuffy on Sundays. Any place would, with that many people packed into it, and normally no one minds.

These days it can get too much. If it was warm and crowded, at least the feeling was consistent. These days there’s a contradiction, for Carwood at least, an edge of emptiness that throws the whole thing off.

He steps outside and tries to breathe. It doesn’t quite work right, like it hasn’t for the past six months, until he’s got a cigarette in his mouth. He inhales the smoke, the familiar smell, and his lungs expand just fine.

He hears the door open behind him and just barely manages to swallow a sigh. He can’t deal with Harry or Kitty right now. Dick would at least be quiet. If it’s one of the boys, they might leave if he doesn’t turn around.

Then someone drops a jacket around his shoulders, and he relaxes. Nix, then. It’s a new development in their relationship, this—Nix taking away his cigarettes if he’s smoking too much, or bringing him a jacket if he goes without one in the brisk mid-October air.

It’s fifty degrees. Never let it be said Nix is a reasonable person.

There was a night in August when he took away Carwood’s whiskey and told him he was drinking too much. Harry and Dick both froze, almost amused and almost concerned, probably for Nix’s sanity. Carwood laughed harder than he had in a long time.

Nix sits next to him, on the step this time instead of the ground. “All right, Lip?”

“Just needed a break,” Carwood says.

Nix nods, unlit cigarette dangling from his lips as he pats his pockets for a lighter. “I don’t blame you, it’s a mess in there.”

“I saw Babe hiding in the kitchen,” Carwood says. “He looked upset. You know anything about that?”

“Well, Heffron’s always been good with dates,” Nix says. He reaches up a hand to grab his cigarette between two fingers, exhaling a cloud of smoke as he drops it, other hand coming up to rub across his mouth. He adds unnecessarily, “It’s been six months.”

“Yeah,” Carwood agrees.

“Now I know you’re lying to me, though,” Nix says.

Carwood almost smiles. “How so?”

“You’re telling me you saw Babe upset and came to sit outside instead of talking to him?” Nix asks. He shakes his head. “Something’s gotta be wrong.”

“Well, I saw Gene and Bill head in there after him, so I thought they had it handled,” Carwood says. Nix gives him a suspicious look, and he sighs. “And I figured I’m not exactly the best person to make him feel better. The boys, they… I think I make it worse, in these cases.”

“What, you think they pity you?” Nix asks.

“No,” Carwood says. “I think it’s compassion. You don’t give them enough credit.”

Nix shrugs. “What can I say, I’m a cynic. Is it five yet?”

Carwood checks his watch. “Twenty minutes. You’re back to following that rule?”

There was a sketchy period, after last April, when Nix had dropped his concession to drinking like a healthy, non-alcoholic person in timing if not quantity and slid right back to day drinking. It’s been getting better, but this is a good sign.

“It was time,” Nix says. “Besides, I figure if I give it much longer, Ron will come back as a ghost just to kick my ass.”

Carwood laughs. “If you gave it much longer, I would have done it for him.”

“Well, there you go, then,” Nix says, nodding at him. “I couldn’t possibly put that on your plate.”

“Yes, where would I find the time in my busy schedule,” Carwood says dryly. Nix throws him a confused look, and he laughs again. “Come on. It’s not like wallowing in self-pity takes up all that many hours.”

“That’s not what you’ve been doing,” Nix says.

“Yeah, it is,” Carwood disagrees. “Or something like it, anyway.”

“You go to work every day, you come here and help wrangle the boys every Sunday—in addition to doing it at least four other days of the week, probably—shit, you’ve even picked up a new bad habit,” Nix says, gesturing to the cigarette Carwood is stomping out on the ground. “Seems like you’re keeping yourself plenty busy.”

“It’s a standstill. It’s not—there was a plan, before,” Carwood says, frustrated.

“What’s that saying?” Nix asks. “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans?”

“You don’t need to tell me that,” Carwood mutters darkly. Nix almost looks apologetic. He shrugs it off. “That’s not the point. If I’m not moving forward, I’d at least like to be happy where I am. And right now, I just… right now, when I wake up in the morning, the only thing I look forward to is going back to bed.”

Nix stares at him in shock. Carwood ducks his head, eyes on the pack of cigarettes in his hand as he toys with the idea of lighting another, wishing he hadn’t said anything. Nix has enough of his own shit to work though, he doesn’t need Carwood adding to it. It had just slipped out, much the same way most things in his life for half a year now seem to be out of his control and irreversible.

“Tell me something,” Nix says eventually. “What was the plan before?”

“Before he left, we were talking about kids,” Carwood says. He tries to add, “When he came back, we were going to—”

He can’t get through the sentence. He grimaces and gives in to a second smoke, tapping it into his palm just for something to do with his hands. Nix looks away. “Fucking shit,” he says.

“Yeah,” Carwood agrees.

“Have you—fuck. Fucking fuck.” Nix checks his watch. Still not five. Carwood waits him out, almost smiling again. It’s not funny, but even Nix is shaking his head at himself. “Have you thought about what the new plan is?”

“Started to,” Carwood says. “I couldn’t, for awhile, but… but now…”

“But now?” Nix prompts.

“I’m thinking about doing it anyway,” Carwood confesses. He’s doing more than thinking about it, really. There’s nothing else to do. He’s got places to go, work-wise, research and projects and promotions, but it’s not enough. He’s a people-oriented guy, always has been. And maybe there will come a time when he’s not completely, ridiculously, terribly in love with a dead man, but he can’t see that time coming. He doesn’t know that he wants it to. If he’s having a kid, a family, a future—it’s going to be with Ron.

Even if Ron isn’t there to see it.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Nix asks. This is not the reaction Carwood was expecting. “You have a house full of children inside that are almost self-sufficient adults, and you’re telling me you want to start all over? People complain when they have two or three boys, Lip, and you have almost twenty. And now you want to add another? Christ, I can’t believe people call you the sane one.”

Carwood starts laughing, feeling lighter than he has in a long time. It’s something Nix has a talent for, he’s found, inspiring that in him. Maybe it’s because he’s so similar to Ron, in certain ways, his sense of humor chief among them.

This is not the reaction Nix was expecting. He laughs too, just a little.

And Carwood says, seemingly out of nowhere, “Ron wrote me letters while he was overseas, you know. He was never gonna send them, but the joke’s on him because they gave them to me in the box of his stuff.”

Nix simply nods. “You read ‘em?”

“Some,” Carwood answers. He tilts his head back, looking at the sky. It’s not raining this time. “I’m pacing myself.”

He’s saving them. At some point he’s going to reach the end of those letters. He’s going to read the last line, and it will have been the last thing Ron will ever say to him. Maybe it’s normal to prolong that moment, maybe it’s even a healthy, beneficial thing to do. For the moment, it’s just necessary.

He looks back to Nix, who is still waiting patiently, and explains, “The last one I read, he was talking about whether we should adopt a boy or a girl. You and he had a very similar point of view.”

“It would be nice to have another girl around,” Nix muses. “Kitty would love it.”

“Kitty would love it either way,” Carwood points out.

“True. Oh, hell, Harry’s gonna be so mad,” Nix says, laughing again. “They’ll probably start trying to get pregnant just to see if they can get it done before you.”

Carwood’s smile almost falters before he catches himself. _As long as we beat Harry and Kitty_. Instead of thinking about it, he lights the cigarette he’s been playing with, tapping his empty fingers on his thigh.

“They better not,” he says, exhaling smoke and shaking off the memory. “As it stands, less than half of those boys can be trusted with a child. They’ve got to be trained. Gotta ease into that sort of thing, we can’t start with two around.”

“Two is optimistic. Knowing them it’d be twins,” Nix says.

They smoke in silence for a few long moments.

Finally, Carwood asks, “Okay, what? No words of caution from the cynic?”

Nix looks over. “Huh?”

“Your one judgment was that I was insane for wanting to do this. You never said anything about whether I could,” Carwood says. Nix gives him a blank look. He shrugs. “You think I could do it alone?”

“Lip,” Nix says, rolling his eyes. “I said you were insane for wanting to do it _again_. I know it’s a running joke that half of us would kill each other in a week without you and Dick, but it’s not all that exaggerated. If anyone in the world is perfect for parenthood, it’s you.”

Carwood spends a long moment speechless.

“Besides,” Nix adds. “You’ve seen the turn out we get for Sunday dinner. Who the fuck’s alone?”

…

_Carwood,_

_I’ve been thinking about what we’ll do if I get home. I used to think I couldn’t do that. Like the thought of home—or at least of making it there—had to be shut off and tucked away in order for me to function as I should, to do my duty without hesitation. I thought that right up until about one week into my first tour, when I realized two things._

_The first was that I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about you since I met you, so why the hell should that change now? It didn’t. It hasn’t since. I don’t think it ever will. I’m amused at myself as I think this, sentimental as it is, but I hope it never does._

_The second is that most things I do here are choices. Coming here was a choice, following every order is a choice (between that and a court-martial—I never said they were good choices), and doing what I have to do here is a choice. The only thing that’s not is whether I come home. That’s not up to me. I’ve seen careful, cautious men blown to bits on the side of the road, or taken out by a sniper, or killed in a goddamn friendly fire incident. And I think we can both agree I am neither of those things. So maybe it’s three things that I realized—the second, that caution won’t increase my chances of getting back (I don’t know what does, if it’s something like fate or a divine lottery or there really is a god, but I know it’s nothing so sensible as caution). And the third: that means I can make the choice. I can make the choice to function as a soldier, without hesitation, because there’s no point to doing otherwise if it won’t help get me back to you._

_Hope won’t kill or compromise me, and it won’t get me home. For now, it can just keep me warm at night. I’m not sure any of this makes sense outside my own head, but it’s what I’ve got._

_What I’ve been thinking about these past nights is the opposite of morning sex. Or, no—that which will be preventing it in our future, with any luck._

_We never said whether we wanted a boy or a girl._

_Either side has its arguments, of course. A girl would be a change of pace, maybe even a nice one. Kitty might even forgive us for beating her to the punch. We would be completely out of our depth within a matter of years, I think, but I’ve never known you to back down from a challenge._

_A boy would be familiar. You might even say we have some experience—I know the boys were technically adults when we met them, but I imagine dealing with them their first year of college was similar to what it’d be like with a toddler. Make sure they eat, make sure they sleep, fix whatever’s broken when you find them crying on the floor at two in the afternoon. There was that time we found Luz drinking vodka out of a sippy cup… I would not suggest repeating that experience this time around._

_Normally this is where I’d say there must be something in the water here, between my earlier remark and what I’m thinking now, but that can’t be true. If there is, it’s nothing good. We’re all killing each other. I guess I’ll say I must be in a mood tonight, because I can’t think of a preference one way or another._

_Whatever happens, as long as it’s with you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from I Wanna Get Better by Bleachers.


	2. Chapter 2

The boys meet for lunch some weekdays. It’s a set time and place that anyone may or may not show up to—the place being a café right down the street from Carwood’s work, and the reason being a completely transparent excuse to check up on him that the boys had started a couple years ago when he was in a distinctly darker place.

First he rebelled against it, and then he resented it. Now he indulges it. They worry whether he likes it or not, and if he can’t stop it, he can put them at ease.

Today, it’s just two of them.

“So, how’s the kiddo?” Luz asks. It’s one of the first questions Carwood gets from anyone these days, and it’s infinitely better than _so, how are you doing?_

Carwood lets out a small groan. “It’s a very bad, bad time of year, George.”

He can see visibly see Luz working it out, the way his face lights up with the realization. “It’s almost Halloween.”

“I thought the sugar rush was supposed to come _after_ the trick or treating,” Carwood says, long-suffering and absolutely, tellingly, unable to keep back a smile. “He’s been bouncing off the walls for a solid week.”

“Well, he takes after his favorite uncle,” Luz says proudly.

Many of the boys apparently take after Luz, then, because the holiday is a favorite among them. Skip, Penk and Malark take the _trick_ part of trick or treating very seriously—October means, in large part, not letting your guard down for a month straight. Harry, Kitty and Ron used to do something similar, a competition between the three of them that was honestly more than a little terrifying.

It was a tradition that had started a month after Ron and Harry met their freshman year of college, something that had carried on and grown until no one would so much as step into their dorm room for the entire month of October. Finding one of them or Kitty lying in wait covered in blood was enough of a heart attack, yet it barely scratched the surface of the lengths they’d go to.

And that was to say nothing of their actual costumes.

“Lip,” Luz says, and Carwood’s gaze snaps from the coffee mug cradled in his hand to Luz’s face. He looks concerned, like it’s not the first time he’s said his name, and a bit remorseful, like he knows exactly what thoughts had Carwood spacing out. “Are you—”

“I thought Christmas was Webster’s favorite holiday,” Carwood interrupts. He clears his throat, blinking until the memories behind his eyelids dissolve, and takes a sip of coffee. He’s heard the words _are you okay_ more times in the last two and a half years than anyone should in their entire life.

On cue, Luz drops it and starts sputtering, “Web is _not_ Scotty’s favorite, he hasn’t been since July!”

Everyone watches Carwood carefully now, at least every once in awhile, but no one is as subtle as Luz. No one is as good at carrying on a normal, distracting conversation, either. Sometimes Carwood really loves Luz.

“Well, you’re not the one who took him to the aquarium last weekend,” he says lightly, starting to smile again.

“What, he’s on fish again? I thought it was space right now,” Luz says, dismayed.

“It is, but he wasn’t about to turn down an aquarium trip. He really likes the seals.”

“Tell me he doesn’t want to be a shark or something for Halloween.”

“No,” Carwood says. His smile fades into something a little sadder, and he folds both hands around the mug for an excuse to stare at it. “No, he wants to be a soldier.”

…

“Oh my god, look at him.”

“Is that the cutest thing you’ve ever seen, or what?”

“I think I could cry, it’s that sweet.”

“No, no, he’s supposed to be tough. Kids don’t want to be called sweet.”

“Too bad. Tears. Actual tears.”

Carwood clears his throat. “Boys.”

Obediently, Malarkey closes his mouth, and Muck stops dabbing at invisible tears under his eyes. Scott, still standing in front of the mirror in his room trying to get his tie just right, hasn’t even looked up. And it’s a good thing, or he’d be pouting the rest of the day over being called cute in his uniform.

“Seriously though, Lip,” Malarkey says quietly. “He’s fucking adorable.”

“Yeah, I like him,” Carwood agrees.

“What do we say if we can’t call him cute? How okay are you with the term badass?” Muck asks.

“To describe my four-year-old? I’m not wild about it.”

“Hard to get around it,” Malark mutters. “Looks like a mini Ron.”

Muck attempts to stomp discreetly on Malarkey’s foot, shooting him a look, and Malark flicks a guilty glance over at Carwood. He just shakes his head at them. “Do we need to go over ground rules for tonight?”

“Aw, come on, Lip,” Muck says. “You’re gonna be there the whole time.”

“And I’ll have my hands full enough with one child, I don’t need two more,” Carwood tells them sternly.

“We promise to behave. Cross our hearts,” Malark says, crossing his heart, Muck beside him hurrying to mirror the gesture.

“Yeah, Lip, save the speech,” Nix says, sauntering into the room.

Muck waves a hand at him. “Thank you.”

“You know they’ll just do whatever they want anyway.”

“I retract my gratitude.”

Carwood considers them carefully. “One thing,” he relents. “Repeat after me: you will not pimp out my son for more candy.”

They hold up their right hands, perfectly solemn, and recite, “We will not pimp out your son for candy.”

“Or use him to pick up chicks,” Nix adds.

Malarkey immediately starts protesting. Carwood shakes his head again, fighting off a smile, and leaves them to it. He leans up against the open door to Scott’s room, watching until his boy looks up.

Scott bites his lip, mildly distraught, and says, “Papa, I can’t tie it.”

“You want some help?”

“I guess,” Scott says. If he could do everything himself, he would. It worries Carwood as much as it amuses him.

Scott watches as Carwood kneels and carefully does up a knot, neat and pristine the way Scott wanted. He only relaxes when Carwood finishes and smooths it down. He twists his torso to look at himself in the mirror, mouth curving up into an excited smile, and Carwood’s breath hitches.

Happy moment, he reminds himself. This is a happy moment.

Then Scott turns back to him and asks seriously, “How do I look?”

“Like a real soldier,” Carwood tells him. He reaches out and adjusts his collar, handing him his hat.

Scott puts it on, watching himself in the mirror and chewing his lip again. Then he asks, quieter, “Do I look like Daddy?”

“Yeah,” Carwood assures him readily. His voice comes out only a little hoarse. He clears his throat. “Yeah, baby, you do.”

“I’m not—” Scotty starts, nose wrinkling, and Carwood laughs despite himself.

“I know, I know. You’re not a baby.”

Scott nods, satisfied with his acquiescence. And then he yelps when Carwood scoops him up and tosses him over his shoulder, bright peals of laughter ringing out as he squirms in Carwood’s hands and protests, “Papa!”

“What?” Carwood asks innocently. “Don’t tell me you can’t get down.”

“You’re _big_!”

“So are you, soldier. Give me your worst.”

Eventually, the combined efforts of Scott, Muck, and Malarkey manage to see him safely on the ground again. Nix hangs back and takes pictures like the soccer mom he secretly is, and Carwood manages for a solid five minutes to stop thinking about how proud Ron would be to see all this.

…

_Carwood,_

_There’s a reason I joined the army. You know this. It’s not all fighting wars, of course, but much of the time it feels useful, for lack of a better word. There are a lot of reasons, actually, and I won’t put them down here. You know all of this. We’ve talked about it a hundred times._

_I remember the first time you asked me why. We’d been together about a year and a half, living in that first shitty apartment we had because you insisted on paying an even half of the rent. I fell asleep that night in our bed, and when I woke up you weren’t there. That hardly ever happens - I’m not sure if you realize that. I can’t always be there when you wake up, but I can’t remember the last time you weren’t for me._

_So I found you on the couch surrounded by half of my books. And I know you remember this, but humor me, because I need to think about it again. I need to see it on paper._

_You were reading about Normandy. At first I laughed. You never really cared about history, not beyond the fact that I did. I always liked that about you. Nix rolled his eyes when I told him that, but I mean it. You’re far too concerned with the present to care about the past, and there’s a lot to respect in that._

_And then you closed the book and asked me why I had to go. I did my best to explain, even though I’d never put it into words before. And you asked me more questions - what the exact plan was, and when I’d do it, and how - but you never asked me not to. You never asked me not to go._

_I don’t think I ever thanked you for that. I would have stayed if you asked. I would’ve gone to grad school and then done I don’t know what. And it would’ve been good, because I’d have had you, but it wouldn’t have felt quite right. I might end up there someday, but I needed to do this first._

_I’d do anything you ask, that’s what it comes down to. Thank you for not asking._

...

As a toddler, Scott cycled through a few different phases.

It was the same thing all kids do. First he wanted to be a pirate, and then a cowboy, and then a firefighter. At one point he wanted to be a mermaid. For a good long while, he was set on being a marine biologist—or, as he put it, playing with seals. Now he wants to be an astronaut.

Scotty alternates between telling everyone that he’s going to be a soldier when he grows up, like his daddy, and that he’s going to be a scientist, like his papa.

Except unlike Carwood, he’s going to space.

Nix has since informed him that the name for that kind of science, more or less, is astronomy. He taught him how to say it and everything, and now Scott enthusiastically proclaims that to be his life’s purpose. Nix has also helpfully informed him that you don’t learn much astronomy in kindergarten, nor much military strategy, and now Scott emphatically does not want to go.

This leaves Carwood slumped over the kitchen table the first day of school, having spent half the night trying to comfort his fastidious five year old who didn’t _want_ to go learn how to read or write or color, he already _knew_ all that, he wanted to learn about _stars_. He doesn’t lift his face out of his coffee mug when the door opens.

“Guess what I did,” Kitty sings, dropping her bag in the seat next to Carwood, practically dancing with excitement.

“Kitty, we’ve talked about this. You and Harry will get there on your own time. If you’ve kidnapped a child, you need to give it back,” Carwood says.

“I did a very helpful thing for _your_ child, actually, so if you could be a little more grateful…” She crosses her arms and arches an eyebrow and waits.

“Thank you, Kitty,” Carwood says automatically. He finally deigns to sit up. “What did you do?”

She drops the act, smile stretching wide across her face again. “I convinced his teacher to get a fish.”

“You what?”

“Yeah, I found out whose class he was in, and I went and had a little talk with her about what a great idea it is to have a classroom fish. Teaches the kids responsibility, good for science lessons, all that crap.”

“That is some manipulative favoritism,” Carwood says. Marine life might not be Scotty’s particular _thing_ anymore, but it’ll still pique his interest.

“And that’s why I’m not his teacher,” Kitty says.

Just then, Scott comes trudging out of his room. He’s wearing a deep-set scowl, tired eyes, and the most adorable pressed white button down.

“Did he pick that out himself?” Kitty whispers.

Carwood nods, biting back a smile. “Apparently school is ridiculous, but it’s important to look professional.”

“That is the most precious thing I’ve ever heard.”

As if he has a radar for those things, Scott looks up with a glare. It softens slightly when he sees Kitty, and just a little more when Carwood beckons him over and pulls him into his lap.

“Don’t wanna go, Papa,” Scott murmurs, dropping his head to Carwood’s shoulder.

“Are you sure?” Carwood asks. “Because Aunt Kitty just came from visiting your classroom, and she told me something really interesting.”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Scott says slowly. He chews on his lip for a long moment. Then he sighs. “What?”

“What?” Carwood echoes.

Scott gives him a long-suffering look. “What’s int’resting, Papa?”

“I don’t know,” Carwood muses. He trades a thoughtful look with Kitty. “Should we tell him?”

“It might be better as a surprise,” Kitty says, shrugging.

“Aunty,” Scott whines.

“Come on, you love surprises,” she says.

“No, I don’t,” he says.

“Well, learn to,” Kitty says. “Faster you get ready to go, faster you can see it.”

Scott twists to throw Carwood his deadliest pout, but Carwood just kisses his scrunched up nose and sends him on his way.

They can hear him flying around his room, collecting brand new school supplies from the floor where he’d thrown them last night and shoving them into his brand new backpack. Kitty leans over the counter, stealing his coffee while he starts making Scott breakfast, and opens her mouth.

“Please don’t ask me how I’m doing,” Carwood says.

She cocks her head. “You were up half the night. It’s a perfectly innocent question.”

“In that case: tired. Other than that, I’m perfectly fine.”

“Not even a little separation anxiety? Your kid is starting school,” she presses.

“He already went to preschool. And he’s already at daycare most days,” Carwood points out.

Then Kitty pulls out the big guns. “Kindergarten is a milestone, though. Your baby’s growing up.”

And Carwood’s hands falter while he’s pouring out orange juice.

Scott comes running out with his army green backpack slung over his shoulder and a hesitant smile. “Ready.”

“Breakfast first,” Carwood manages to say, staring at the juice spilled on the counter.

It’s going to be a long day.

They meet Harry at the school, getting there early enough to pop in on him running around his classroom trying frantically to get everything set up in time. He’s teaching second grade this year, and promises to slip Scotty some math problems if the coloring books get too boring. Carwood would be exasperated at another disparaging remark made against kindergarten, but it seems to perk Scott up a bit more.

Kitty dutifully takes a thousand pictures, and Carwood is once again grateful. Rarely does he have to distract himself from a moment to take a picture of it; he’s got an entourage of overly enthusiastic friends to do it for him.

After she introduces Carwood to Scott’s new teacher, she does have to go man her own classroom. Carwood tells himself he doesn’t miss her buffering presence—not for need of a shield between him and his son, but between him and the memories.

Something to hold up against the thought that if Ron were here—it ends a hundred different ways, that thought. He has it a hundred different times a day.

If Ron were here, maybe he’d know what to say to make Scott want to go inside.

Then again, making people smile has always been more Carwood’s area, and Scott is staring at the open classroom door like he can frown it into submission. Carwood takes a knee in front of him so they’re on the same level and asks, “What’s wrong?”

“Gonna be boring. Kids are stupid. No stars. Not even any seals,” Scott lists off. Just like that, all the same things he’d screamed last night while he hurled his notebook across the room. Because seals are, obviously, a basic requirement for all kindergarten classrooms. Except then he adds, so quiet Carwood can barely hear him, “They’re not gonna like me.”

Carwood nods slowly, considering. If Ron were here, he thinks. “You want a tip?” he offers. Scott nods back, so serious and solemn, still staring into Carwood’s eyes like he knows the secrets of the universe. “Don’t call them stupid to their faces.”

It wins him a small laugh.

“And don’t count on there not being any fish,” Carwood adds, because he can’t help himself. Scott’s eyes widen, and he jolts as if to go running off. Carwood snags him by the belt and holds him still. “Hey. Hug?”

“I don’t need a hug,” Scott informs him.

“And if _I_ want one?”

Scott flings his arms around Carwood’s shoulders and hugs him tightly. For just a second, clearly impatient, and then he twitches as if to pull away. And then he pauses, and holds on a moment longer.

When Carwood cuts out early from work to pick Scotty up from school his first day, Scott runs straight into his arms babbling about their new goldfish, and how her name is Goldilocks because the class got to vote on it, and how Scott thought it was a stupid name but he didn’t say it to anyone’s face.

It’s a good compromise. Even if he made with a ghost.

…

Around Christmas, Carwood has been coughing for a week and a half.

It’s not a _good_ sign, exactly, and he knows what this tends to mean, but he doesn’t have the time for a relapse right now. He’s swamped at work, Scott’s been being difficult ever since he told him that the aforementioned avalanche of work meant he won’t be able to take him to the planetarium this weekend, and he’s still got presents to buy and wrap. All this, and two weeks until Christmas.

Then he wakes up on a Tuesday morning, half an hour after his alarm was set to go off, and can’t bring himself to get out of bed. He can barely bring himself to breathe, actually, congested and sore as he is. When he checks his phone, he sees that his alarm did indeed go off, and he’d fever-dreamed his way right through it.

In all likelihood, he’s only awake because he coughed himself there.

“Scott?” He means to call, but it comes out as a rasp. Still, the door nudges open right away.

Scott is watching him with wide eyes, jaw held tight like he’s trying to keep something in. He’d been standing outside Carwood’s door.

“You tried to wake me up, huh?” Carwood asks. Scott nods silently. Carwood just manages to summon the willpower to lift a hand and wave him over, and Scott scrambles onto the bed to tuck himself into his side, breathing shallowly against his shoulder.

“Twice,” Scott mumbles.

“I’m sorry,” Carwood tells him.

“You’re gonna be mad,” Scott says, squirming closer even as he does. He peeks up to look at Carwood’s face, probably drawn and pale, and then hides his own in Carwood’s shoulder again.

“I’m too tired to be mad,” Carwood says. “What is it?”

“I called Uncle Dick,” Scott admits. “You just, you weren’t waking up, and you looked scary, and I didn’t know what to do. I mean, I waited at first, but then I tried again an’ you still didn’t move an’ so I called. He’s gonna be here… soon, I think.”

 _You looked scary_. Meaning he’d scared his son, who at five years old was already too proud to admit it outright. Stellar parenting he was doing right now.

“Scotty, I’m sorry,” Carwood says again. “You did the right thing, okay? I’m not mad. That was exactly right.”

Christ, Ron is going to kill him.

Carwood sucks in a sharp breath at the thought. And of course it sends him into another coughing fit, making Scott sit up to stare at him with wide, worried eyes. He rubs Scott’s back as soothingly as he can, fighting for the breath to tell him it’s okay. When he finally manages it, Scott sets a hand against Carwood’s forehead with a determined frown. Then he leans forward and shakily presses his lips there, trying to take Carwood’s temperature the way Carwood does his.

Carwood wishes desperately that Ron was here to want to kill him.

Then the front door opens, and Dick’s voice floats through the house the moment it does. He sounds calm, steady, but Carwood can read the worry in it. “Scott?”

“Go get him,” Carwood says. Scott looks as if he’ll refuse, but Carwood nudges him. “Go on.”

“Here!” Scott calls back, clambering off the bed and padding his way to the door.

Carwood uses the time to force himself into a sitting position, biting back a small groan. He hasn’t felt this bad in years, not since the first time this goddamn pneumonia popped up. You spend _one_ winter overworking yourself in the cold without a decent jacket, and suddenly you’re marked for life. He scrubs his hands down his face and back over his hair, taking shallow breaths so as not to set off his lungs.

And then Dick appears in the doorway, Scott dragging him by the hand, and Carwood winces at the look on his face.

“So this is why we haven’t seen much of you lately,” Dick says mildly.

“I didn’t realize—”

“That you need to take care of yourself? Yes, somehow in your thirty years of life, you have yet to realize this,” Dick says.

“Can you take Scott for the day? Or find one of the boys who can?” Carwood asks, ignoring him. It’s a fight he won’t win, and one he’s not particularly interested in having at the moment.

“For a day,” Dick says. “Because this bout of pneumonia will clear right up with a full day’s sleep?”

“Dick, I can’t afford—”

“You make plenty of money, Carwood,” Dick says, despite knowing full well it had nothing to do with what Carwood was about to say. Instead he disappears into the bathroom and says, “If the fever is higher than a one-oh-three we’re going to the hospital.”

Carwood considers asking Scott to get him a nice cold glass of water, but decides attempting to cheat a pseudo medical examination is not a good habit to teach his son.

They go to the hospital.

Over the course of moving, the long process of checking in, and dealing with Nix’s disapproving stare when he meets them there, Carwood finds himself becoming increasingly less clear-headed, leaning on Dick for support more and more. By the time he finds himself settled in an actual bed, he’s pretty sure he’s dreaming.

Dick has taken Scott off somewhere, and it’s only Nix in the room, pacing at the foot of the bed looking like he’s about to start yelling.

Before he can, Carwood has to know. He flexes his fingers weakly, and sure enough, his hand is empty. That’s not right. There’s something not right about that. “Nix,” he says, as loud as he can to get his attention. Nix comes to an abrupt stop and stares at him. “Nix, why isn’t Ron here?”

Nix stares at him harder. His mouth parts, eyebrows drawing together like he’s in pain. “Oh, Christ,” he says.

Then Dick appears in the doorway, sans Scotty, and now Carwood needs to know two things.

“Scotty,” he says.

“With Luz in the cafeteria,” Dick tells him. “Or maybe at a vending machine. They’re on a breakfast hunt.”

He’s not sure why Luz is here, but that’s good enough for him. George is unsurprisingly good with kids, and Carwood trusts him. He doesn’t have the strength to repeat his earlier question, but maybe Dick will know. He eyes him hopefully and manages to ask, “Ron?”

Dick’s eyes widen.

Carwood passes out.

When he wakes, there’s an IV in his wrist, he can almost breathe, and he feels a damn sight more coherent. Scott is curled up against his side, fast asleep, and Nix is sitting in the chair by the bed staring at the ceiling.

That’s when Carwood remembers what he’d said. “Oh, shit.”

Nix looks over. “Good morning to you too.”

“Is Scotty okay?” Carwood asks.

Any other time, Nix would point out that Scott is right there, cuddled up tight against Carwood and clearly intact. This time he just nods. “We explained. You’re sick, you’ll get better, everything’s fine, the whole rundown. As long as no one tried to pull him away from you before you woke up, he was good.”

“Right,” Carwood sighs.

“He asked if you were gonna die like his other parents,” Nix adds, casual as only he can.

Carwood stops breathing. He closes his eyes, thinking that Ron’s not here to be pissed at him for fucking up so badly so he’ll have to be pissed enough for the both of them. “Right,” he manages to say again. “And you said…”

“That you weren’t. That Ron died at war, not because he was sick.” Nix stops, laughs bitterly, and looks like he wants to reach for his flask. He doesn’t. “Far as we know, anyway.”

Sometimes Carwood thinks that Nix took the lack of answers regarding the specific circumstances around Ron’s death harder than he did. Intelligence is Nix’s thing, after all.

“And his birth parents?” Carwood asks.

“Told him they died in an accident. Didn’t get more specific, I really don’t want to be the one to explain car crashes to him,” Nix says.

“Thanks,” he says tiredly. Nix waves him off, and that’s not right. “What, I don’t get a lecture?”

The look on Nix’s face says _later_. For now, he says, “I brought you something. Some clothes and all, but I hope you don’t mind, I—well.” He thrusts something into Carwood’s hand, and Carwood recognizes the folded piece of paper as the next letter in his pile. Nix shrugs at him. “I thought you might want it.”

It’s easy to see Nix’s hand, now that it’s been shoved in his direction. His knuckles are red and raw. Carwood remembers the look on Nix’s face when he’d asked for Ron. “Did you punch a wall?”

“Let’s say this hospital is getting a hefty donation and leave it at that.”

…

_Carwood,_

_I miss you. I talk around that a lot without saying it, I’m not sure why. I suppose it seems like I shouldn’t get to feel that. I’m the one who joined the army, right? Shouldn’t have made that choice if I didn’t want to be away from you._

_But I do anyway. Every day._

_I wonder how you’re doing. It’s not like I haven’t gotten the chance to ask that since I left, but it’s not the same. It’s not the same as being there to take care of you myself and having you fight me the whole way. Sometimes you get wrapped up in a project and forget to eat or sleep. It’s endearing, but only when there’s someone there to bully you into doing it._

_And I realize the irony of me saying this to you, but someone needs to make sure you’re not isolating yourself either. I know that, between the two of us, you’re not the one who tends to do that, but I also know you don’t like to bother anyone if you’re feeling down. And if you miss me half as much as I miss you, well. Please take care of yourself._

...

For Scotty’s sixth birthday, Carwood took the day off from work and kept him out of school. They spent it together, a whole day full of feeding the seals at the aquarium and listening to Scotty ramble excitedly about everything he learned at the new planetarium exhibit. It was planned and looked forward to and peacefully enjoyed.

Eight days later he misses work again for a much less enjoyable reason.

“You gotta to be kidding me,” Carwood says. Out loud, to himself, the minute he hangs up the call and doesn’t have to sound like the epitome of a responsible, capable parent. One thing he never quite considered when making the decision to adopt as a widowed single parent was not having to constantly justify the decision to himself, but to everyone around him in a way parents like Harry and Kitty never would. If their school principal called them up to tell them their kid got into a fight at recess, she wasn’t going to do it with that underlying tone of judgment, like of course the single father couldn’t manage to handle his kid, to teach his son healthy, nonviolent ways to express emotion—

It’s possible Carwood is projecting.

“What is it?” Nix asks, in that way of his, like he’s not sure whether he should be concerned yet and isn’t going to commit to the emotion until it’s necessary.

“That was Scott’s principal,” Carwood says. “Who I have met twice, and now apparently have to go see a third time, because Scott got into a fight at recess.”

Nix’s eyes widen. Across the table from Carwood at Nix’s right, Dick frowns. “Is he okay?”

“Did he win?” Nix asks, like this is more important.

“He’s fine,” Carwood says. To Nix, he adds, “And apparently yes, because the other boy didn’t even hit back.”

“That doesn’t sound like Scott,” Dick says. “That doesn’t even sound like a fight, it sounds like—”

“Like he beat up some innocent kid for no reason?” Carwood finishes. He shakes his head. “That’s how the principal made it sound, but there’s no way. I mean, I can’t…”

“No way,” Nix repeats firmly. Carwood meets his eyes, grateful for the outside reassurance that he’s not being ridiculously biased in thinking his kid would never do something like that. Then again, it’s not like Nix is much more impartial. “Scotty would never, and if the other kid didn’t manage to hit back it just means play-boxing with you and Toye taught our boy a little too much.”

“Do you want us to come with you?” Dick asks.

Carwood sighs. “No. Thank you, but I need to talk to him alone.”

By now, the thought that he has the wrong support system is nothing but a twinge in his chest, a momentary distraction that he bats away with the ease of practice. It’s not that Carwood doesn’t want the help, but it’s not Dick and Nix who should be taking the afternoon off work to provide it.

Then again, he can just imagine Ron’s reaction to the news that their son is already winning fights at six years old. Maybe it is best Carwood handles this one.

When he gets to the school, Scott is sitting outside the principal’s office staring straight ahead. His palms, sitting open and flat on his thighs, are scraped and bloody. So are his knees. His eyes are red and a little wet, but his face is dry.

His jaw is clenched tight in the way he does when he’s trying not to cry, something Carwood recognizes most from the early years, a holdover from Scott’s first foster home that Carwood can’t think about too long without getting angry. He’s never met the people Scott was with before him, but any place where a toddler didn’t feel safe crying is not a place a toddler should be.

Scott, however, has never shown any interest in breaking the habit. He just holds himself taut, eyes wide and focused on the opposite wall like blinking will break the dam, more controlled than any six year old has the right to be. He looks like he’s meditating.

He looks like Ron.

And it’s probably not stellar parenting, but instantly any frustration Carwood might have felt toward his kid drains out of him. He leans into the doorway of the office like he needs it to hold him up and says softly, “Hey, buddy.”

Scott jerks his head around, eyes widening even further, before he blinks once and swallows hard. A couple tears escape and smear across his flushed cheeks. He just wipes them away impatiently with the back of his hand and says, “Papa, I—”

“Come here,” Carwood says. First things first. This turns out to be the right thing to do, because Scott makes a quiet sound and shoots out of his seat, colliding into Carwood at top speed. Carwood just hugs him tight and kisses his messy hair, unruly at the best of times, apparently leaf strewn at the worst. Scotty pushes his face into Carwood’s chest, breath hitching and hiccupping, and Carwood strokes soothing fingers through his hair, pushing out bits of leaves and twigs, until he’s ready to pull away.

When he does, he says, “It was my fault.”

Carwood smooths a thumb across his son’s damp cheek. He guides Scott back over to his chair and kneels in front of him, frowning over his gritty palms. “You can tell me what happened,” Carwood promises. “But first, why aren’t these bandaged?”

Scotty squirms. “I—I wouldn’t let them. I was mad, I wanted them to stay away.”

“Who’s them, Scotty?” Carwood asks.

“Everyone,” Scott says. He bites his lip, getting upset again. “Everyone, they didn’t—none of them _listened_ to me—”

“Okay, okay,” Carwood says. “Why don’t you tell me, then?”

Scott stares at him hard. “And you’ll listen to me?”

“Always,” Carwood says, just as serious.

Silently, solemnly, Scott holds up his hand, pinky finger outstretched. Carwood hooks it with his own and tries not to smile.

Scotty nods, takes a deep breath, and lets it all out at once. “I tackled Sean. On the grass, though! An’ then he pushed me over and got me all dirty, so that part’s his fault, really, Papa, and then I tackled him again and pinned him with my legs, like Uncle Joe taught me. And—an’ then I hit him. Two times. Maybe three. But then Uncle Harry—I mean Mr. Welsh—pulled me away from him.”

“Harry was there?” Carwood asks, frowning. “Where did he—why didn’t he stay with you?”

“He’s in there,” Scott says, pointing over his shoulder at the principal’s office. “With Sean and his mom. He had to. An’ he asked if I wanted him to call Aunt Kitty outta class to come sit with me, but I didn’t.”

“Why not?” Carwood asks, carefully judgment-free, more interested in gauging his son’s state of mind than the actual answer.

“I didn’t need her,” Scott says simply. “I’m not a baby, Papa, I can wait by myself.”

“I know,” Carwood says. “But you don’t _have_ to. I know you didn’t need someone, but if you _wanted_ someone, that would be okay.”

Internally, Carwood winces. Ron would be unbearably smug, if he were here, smirking at Carwood in the way that meant he’d be laughing at him if he could. Carwood’s teaching their first grader the lesson Ron had been trying to drill into his head from the moment they met.

“Well, I didn’t,” Scott says. Dick says he gets his stubbornness from Carwood, but Carwood’s not sure he didn’t just come that way.

“What happened after Uncle Harry—Mr. Welsh—pulled you away?” Carwood asks, trying to get back on track.

Scott shrugs. “I—I pushed at him. I think I s’prised him, because he let go, and then I fell on the blacktop.”

“That’s how you hurt your hands,” Carwood surmises. Scott nods. “And your knees?”

Scotty ducks his head. “Maybe when I tackled.”

“All right, here’s the thing, Scotty. We’re gonna get you cleaned up, but first you gotta help me out, because I’m still confused. You didn’t want anyone around because no one would listen to what happened, but Uncle Harry saw the whole thing, right?” Carwood checks. Scott nods hesitantly. “So what is it exactly no one’s listening to?”

After a long moment, Scott whispers, “I didn’t tell him.”

“Tell him what?” Carwood asks gently. Scott keeps his lips pressed tight and shakes his head. So Carwood guesses, “Did you not want to tell anyone why you and Sean fought?”

“I know I started it,” Scotty blurts out. “It was my fault for tacklin’ him. But he said—he said—” Carwood waits as patiently as he can. And finally Scotty finishes, mumbling quietly, “He said that you were gonna give me back.”

“ _What_?” Carwood can’t stop the instinctive reaction,, and Scott flinches a little. Carwood shakes his head, trying to organize his thoughts into something productive before he upsets his kid again. “Why would he—why would he say that?”

“He said being ‘dopted meant someone didn’t want me, so you probably weren’t gonna want me neither,” Scott explains. He stares down at his hands, twisting his fingers together, and Carwood holds back all the automatic reassurances fighting to be put into words, waiting him out. Sure enough, Scott lets out all in a rush, “And that’s stupid, because my other parents _died_. And I _told_ him that. But he’s stupid and said that maybe you would die, too, just to get ‘way from me.”

“Scotty—” Carwood starts.

Except Scott rushes on, “And I know he’s just being mean, but I—I thought—my first parents died and my fake parents gave me ‘way and then my other daddy, from the pictures, he died too. And then I was _mad_ , an’ so I tackled him.”

Carwood doesn’t even know where to start, there’s so much to wrap his head around. He’d been under the impression things didn’t get this complicated until high school. Finally, he says, “Scotty, how long has this boy been talking to you like this?”

“We were _friends_ ,” Scott says, frowning, obviously distressed by this fact. “But he got mad when I beat him in freeze tag yesterday. An’ so today I got a question wrong in social studies, and he said no wants a stupid kid, that I should be careful or you’ll give me back. And then at recess he… said all the other stuff.”

“You know that doesn’t mean you should hit him, though,” Carwood says. That part he can deal with.

Scott avoids his eyes. “I guess.”

“You _guess_?”

“Well, I _won_.”

“Oh, god,” Carwood says faintly.

Scotty shrugs. “I did.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s okay,” Carwood tells him. He grimaces, casting about for a way to prove this point. His eyes fall on Scott’s scraped hands. “Alright,” he says. “I could win a fight against Uncle Harry right now, and I’m mad at him for letting you get hurt. Does that mean I should just go tackle him?”

“Are you sure you could win?” Scott asks, doubtful.

“You don’t think so?” Carwood asks.

“Uncle Harry gets in a lot of fights,” Scott tells him matter-of-factly. Great example everyone is setting for his child, really.

“Who told you that?”

“Uncle Nix.”

“Of course he did,” Carwood mutters. He sighs. “Look, buddy, all I need to do to win a fight against Harry is throw him over my shoulder. He’s tiny. That’s not the point.”

“Then what is?” Scott asks.

“You don’t fight people just because you can. Okay? Even if they’re saying mean things. You could really hurt someone by accident, and I know you don’t want that.”

“Fine.”

Carwood sighs. Scott is glaring at the floor, so Carwood reaches out and nudges his chin up. “I know you know all this. Don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Scott admits.

“Do you know I’m not going anywhere?” Carwood asks.

Scott blinks quickly. A few more tears spill over, and he takes a shaky breath. “I don’t want you to.”

“I’m not,” Carwood says immediately. He surges up to pull Scott into his arms, and Scott sinks into him with a small bitten off sob. “I’m not, and neither are you. Do you trust me?”

“Yeah, _you_ ,” Scott mumbles. Not the rest of the world, but at least Carwood. That’s something. “But what if you die? What if you get sick again?”

Carwood sits back on his heels. “You know I can’t promise I won’t,” he says. It’s probably horrible parenting, but it’s better than a lie Scott would never believe anyway. “But it’s really unlikely. You know what a statistic is?”

“Number,” Scott offers. “’Bout proba—probabl—”

“Probability,” Carwood says. “Yeah, it’s math. And according to math, there’s a real good chance nothing’s gonna happen to either of us.”

Scott bites his lip, considering. “How good?”

“I don’t know exactly,” Carwood admits. “But we can look it up when we get home.”

It’ll take awhile. There’s not exactly a single statistic they can pull from. At least it’ll be educational, if morbid.

Scott takes a breath, swiping ineffectively at his wet face. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Carwood agrees, wiping the tears off Scott’s cheeks with his thumb. “Okay, then. Let’s go get you cleaned up.”

Scott looks at him with wide eyes. “Don’t we have to wait? We got called to the principal’s office, Papa.”

Carwood hums, suppressing a smile. “That’s true. But they should have bandaged all this before anything else, and they didn’t, so as far as I’m concerned they can wait a little for me to take care of it. Besides, we’re coming back.”

What he doesn’t say is that he probably shouldn’t be there when the people in that office walk out, because he’s not sure he’d be able to restrain himself from saying a few choice words to Sean’s mother, the principal, even Harry. Who had only been trying to help, sure, but his kid is _hurting_. In more ways than one, and Carwood may not exactly be thinking rationally right now.

Of course, if Ron were here, two out of three of those people would probably be getting punched, so maybe Carwood is handling himself all right.


	3. Chapter 3

Ever since Carwood was ten years old, his mother has worn his father’s wedding ring on a chain around her neck.

For about five years now he’s done the same thing. That’s normal, he thinks. No one had ever said anything against it when he was a kid, anyway, and the first time his mother saw it—years ago now, back before Scott, when things were still bad in a way he tried not to think about—she’d only smiled sadly.

It’s not the only thing he has left. Most of Ron’s books are still on the shelf in the living room, and some of the clothes he couldn’t quite bring himself to give away are still shoved into the bottom of the closet. He still wears his watch. Last week one of the moms at Scott’s school told him it was going of style, and he’d stood there for a solid minute before walking from her without saying a word.

She was only being playful, probably flirting a little. And he thought he was past the point of not being able to interact with others about this, but somehow her words had struck him as something of a metaphor.

They might even have something to do with the reason he’s sitting on his bed at eleven o’clock at night on a Tuesday, Scotty asleep the next room over, folding and unfolding Ron’s last letter in his hands.

His son is a month shy of seven years old. There’s so much more to look forward to; this is not, logically, the end of anything. Ron won’t be any less gone once he reads this letter. And yet.

And yet he sets it aside and puts his head in his hands, and he doesn’t know how long he sits there in the dark before he picks it up again.

_Carwood,_

_I killed a man today._

_That doesn’t happen as often as you’d think it would over here. It didn’t bother me. It never really has. I don’t know if you know that, but I hope you don’t. It seems like the sort of thing I should be ashamed of. Not the killing, although I suppose that too. The lack of guilt._

_He would’ve killed me. That sounds so cliché, I think, that it was easy to decide he should die so I wouldn’t. It sounds cold, too, now that I write it down. That’s not what I mean, though. That’s not how it happened. I won’t say I did it for you, I won’t put that on your shoulders. I just mean that if the choice was between not killing anyone at war and dying a good man - whatever that means - or living in sin, well, half the world thinks we’re doing that already just being together._

_I’m selfish, do you know that? I’m not sure you do. I think you’ve always given me too much credit. But I’d kill to be with you, and it turns out I mean that literally._

_Of course, this is not the first man I’ve killed. It won’t be the last. And yet instead of sleeping, here I am, writing a letter you’ll never read like a goddamn diary entry. So maybe I’m lying. Maybe it does bother me, only in some way I don’t understand._

_I don’t know. I don’t regret it, I know that. I know that no matter what I do or feel, it’ll all be worth it to see you again. Anything would be._

_That, I do hope you know._

...

“Papa, no.”

“What was wrong with that one?”

“You missed!”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

Across the ice, Scott sighs. “You’re not _trying_.”

Carwood fishes the puck out of the goal and sends it back toward Scott. “Maybe this is me trying, you think of that?”

“Then you’re _bad_ ,” Scott says.

“Maybe you’re just good,” Carwood suggests.

Scott sighs again, this time complete with an eye roll. “Is Uncle Joe still here?”

Most of the boys are still gathered around the plastic tables eating nachos outside the rink. Toye and Guarnere are both more than happy to put their skates back on and help out, Luz tagging along just to make things even, given he’s got about the same hockey skills as a second grader.

Carwood collapses into the seat next to Nix, who had made it onto the ice for all of fifteen minutes and only because Scott begged, and starts loosening the laces on his skates. “It just _had_ to be hockey.”

“Hm?”

“Why couldn’t he have wanted to play football? Or baseball?” Carwood asks. “It had to be hockey?”

Harry laughs. “Hate to break it to you, Lip, but he has to realize you’re not superman at some point. Might as well be because you can’t save a goal to save your life.”

Still, Carwood was under the impression that didn’t happen until they were teenagers. Scott just turned seven this week. They rented the rink out for his party the weekend after his birthday, and he wanted to stay after his friends had left to practice some. Apparently Carwood didn’t provide a sufficient challenge.

No one can say his boy isn’t ambitious.

“Well,” Carwood says, “in that case, might as well tell him it’s time to go soon. Put the final nail in that coffin.”

Dick stands and pats Carwood’s shoulder sympathetically as he walks by him. “I’ll take this one.”

Nix hums. “There you go. It’s impossible to dislike Dick for these things, trust me. He was born to be an authority figure.”

“I’m not sure if you’re complimenting Dick or insulting me.”

“Neither am I. Might be the other way around.”

“Maybe you’re insulting both of us.”

“Might be.”

Carwood shakes his head, checking his watch. “Almost dinnertime, anyway.”

After the afternoon spent skating, the plan is to go home and, instead of Nix cooking Sunday dinner as usual, to let the boys polish off a dozen pizzas between them before Scotty gets his second cake of the week. The first had been on his actual birthday, a quiet Tuesday night that they’d spent with burgers and fries from his favorite restaurant and a Star Trek marathon. Tonight is sure to have a lot more excitement.

It doesn’t quite go as planned.

There’s a Mario Kart tournament getting started in the living room when Carwood leaves to set the table. An hour after they’d ordered the food, his phone rings.

“Hello?” he answers, pulling glasses from the cabinet and wondering if the pizza guy got lost.

Then the caller on the other end says, “Carwood.”

And the glasses drop to the floor and shatter.

Before Carwood recovers enough to speak, the voice that sounds a lot like his dead husband asks, “Was that glass?”

“Yes,” Carwood says automatically.

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, are you bleeding?”

“No, but I might be hallucinating.”

“It’s me,” Ron says softly. “Carwood, it’s me. I promise.”

For a long moment Carwood can’t speak at all. There’s someone in the doorway watching him concernedly, but he looks past them, can’t focus his eyes besides making sure the boys are keeping Scott busy in the other room. He could point out that his hallucination of Ron likely _would_ promise to be real, but he bites his tongue.

Just like before he starts doing the math in his head. Five years, seven months since the last time he saw Ron. Five years and three weeks since he’d died alone in a foreign country. Approximately two minutes since he came back to life. The numbers are soothing, but they don’t make things any clearer, not like they usually do.

Finally he gets out, “I need to hear you say it.”

“It’s Ron.”

And Carwood nearly drops the phone too, but he doesn’t.

Sometime after they hang up, he slides to the floor. Back to the cabinets, phone still in his hand, all of his strength gone with Ron’s voice. He doesn’t look up at the sound of footsteps.

One by one, Dick, Nix and Kitty sit down around him. Harry joins them after a moment, and Carwood looks up sharply. Harry nods. “He’s on a winning streak, we’ve got a few minutes.”

“Was that what it sounded like?” Nix asks.

“That was Ron,” Carwood answers.

“Oh my god,” Kitty says.

Nix looks, for a moment, more vulnerable than Carwood has ever seen him. Without looking away from Carwood, he reaches for Dick, who laces their fingers together tightly and asks, “How?”

“He was captured,” Carwood says. “The _fucking_ army just… left him for dead.” Head in his hands, he presses hard against his temples, having enough trouble thinking through the shock, let alone the anger. “Jesus. Everyone gave up on him.”

“You didn’t,” Harry says.

“I thought he was dead,” Carwood says. “Just like everyone else.”

“Yeah, well, you would have been insane not to,” Harry says. “But it’s been, what? More than five years? And there you are, still wearing your wedding ring, turning down all the single moms who’d rather set up playdates with you than your kid.”

Carwood is too lost in his own head to laugh, but he manages to crack a small smile. Kitty nudges her shoulder against Harry’s, reproachful, but he just wraps his arm around her and holds her there. Before anything else can be said, Scott appears in the doorway. He cocks his head at them all. “Why’s everyone on the floor?”

“Come here, buddy. Watch the glass, come around,” Carwood says, holding out an arm. Scott trots over and plops down, folding his legs underneath him and leaning up against Carwood’s shoulder. “How do you feel about staying with one of your uncles tonight?”

“Why?” he asks.

“I’ve got some stuff to take care of,” Carwood tells him. “Thought it might be fun, since I’ll be busy.”

“He can stay with us,” Harry interjects. “It’d be easiest, we’ve all got school tomorrow. And he owes me a game of poker.”

Scott perks up. “Yeah! Aunty and I are beating him, we gotta finish.”

“For now,” Harry says. “They’re beating me for now.”

Nix, who has been leaning up against the cabinets with one hand over his eyes and the other still gripping Dick’s so hard his knuckles were white, manages to chuckle. “Getting schooled by the seven-year-old. Why am I not surprised.”

“You don’t mind?” Carwood asks Scott. “It is your birthday.”

“My birthday was Tuesday,” Scott says. “And the party’s over, an’ Uncle Harry will let me stay up until eleven, so.”

Carwood laughs wetly and pulls Scott into a sudden hug. He scrunches his face at being pulled halfway into his father’s lap, but doesn’t resist. Carwood tucks his face into Scott’s messy dark hair and breathes deeply. Scott usually likes to keep it neat, it’s one of his more precocious habits, but it has a mind of his own, and the disarray usually means he’s busy having a good time. It’s reassuring. “I think I’m going to take off now,” he mutters. “Get a head start.”

“Okay, Papa,” Scott says, like he wants to roll his eyes but doesn’t.

“Okay,” Carwood breathes. He presses a kiss into Scott’s hair and holds him closer for a long moment. Then he pushes to his feet and gives everyone the best smile he can. “I’ll buy you new glasses.”

…

Leaving probably isn’t the most productive thing Carwood could have done. He spends hours pacing, almost a whole hour in the shower spacing out under the water, another staring at his phone and hoping it will ring. He wanders the entire house fives time over, cataloguing all the things that are different now, things that Ron won’t recognize, things that he’ll recognize as changed. He closes the door to Scott’s room. He opens it. He closes it again.

He takes down the pictures. It’ll be better if he explains first, less of a shock, less confusion.

He puts them back up.

Then the phone finally rings.

“Ron?” He realizes belatedly that he didn’t check, that he should have, that maybe it’s not him.

There’s a small sigh on the other end. A content sigh. He can hear the smile in Ron’s voice. “Carwood.”

“Where are you?” he asks.

“I’m outside,” Ron says. “Assuming you didn’t forget to inform me about a change of address.”

“No, of course not,” Carwood says. The mere thought, that he’d leave this home, that he could live somewhere Ron had never been, that he could sleep somewhere he’s never woken up with Ron beside him, is… probably a healthy one, actually, but not reasonable. Not viable. “What the hell are you doing? Come in.”

“I just… I know all this must be a shock for you. And five hours isn’t much of an adjustment period. I thought maybe…”

“That I wouldn’t want to see you?” Carwood asks incredulously. He’s already at the window, unable to wait. There’s a car out front; he can’t see inside.

“That you might like some warning, before a dead man showed up at your door,” Ron corrects.

Carwood rolls his eyes. “The door is wide open. Come in.”

Then he crosses the room and makes that a reality, throwing the lock and opening the door. He fights the urge to run outside and meet Ron halfway. He’s not going to want to move when he’s finally got Ron within reach again. They’d never get back in the house.

Instead he silences his phone and takes his time carefully placing it on the coffee table. It won’t interrupt, but he’ll see if Harry calls. He sets it down, slow and deliberate to kill some time, and turns. He’s wished a million times that he could make Ron appear in that doorway, that the strength of his wishing would be enough to bring him back.

It’s like it works, this time.

This time Ron is standing there, in full uniform, hands empty and open at his sides. The last time he came home from a tour, he had a bag of his things. This time they’re all at the bottom of Carwood’s closet. The one thing he has is the exact same look in his eyes.

He’s five and a half years older than the last time Carwood saw him. His hair is longer. There’s a new scar underneath his left ear. He’s been through god knows what. But he looks at Carwood the same way he always has, like he’s the only thing in the world that matters.

“Ron,” he says. It just falls out. Much the same way Carwood just starts taking steps across the room toward him before he can decide to move. Ron kicks the door shut with his foot and strides the rest of the way into the room, colliding with Carwood halfway and pulling him close.

Carwood muffles a broken gasp in Ron’s shoulder. Ron splays a hand wide over Carwood’s back, the other running up and down his side, as if he’s trying to touch as much as he possibly can. Carwood pulls him in tighter. Against his ear, like on the phone but so much better, Ron says, “Carwood, goddamn, I—”

“I love you,” Carwood says. It’d been on the tip of his tongue during their entire phone call, but he hadn’t been able to say it, not until he had Ron in front of him. He pulls back as much as he can stand so he can look Ron in the eyes. “Just as much as I did when you left. You gotta know that.”

Ron stares at him for a long moment before he answers. His expression is blank, the same way it often was, but usually not around Carwood. He used to know better; Carwood has always been able to read him. There’s a kind of desperation in his eyes he doesn’t like. “You know I feel the same.”

That’s all the permission he needs to kiss him. Ron pulls him impossibly closer, both hands fisted in his shirt, and kisses him back. It’s like he can breathe right for the first time in years. He doesn’t want to lose that feeling again. So he kisses him, over and over, until Ron says against his mouth, “I’m sorry.”

“What for?” Carwood asks.

“For leaving. For coming home late,” Ron says, in between kissing over Carwood’s face. He lets out a sigh with his lips pressed to Carwood’s scar, and then tips their foreheads together. “If it’s too late—”

“It’s not,” Carwood says immediately. “Can we just—we have to talk. Christ, we have a lot to talk about.”

Ron kisses him once more. Soft and lingering, like it might be the last time—the same way he had when he left. “Yeah. Sit with me.”

“Why are you doing that?” Carwood asks, letting himself be pulled to the couch.

“Doing what?”

“Acting like you’re saying goodbye.”

Ron hesitates, and then he takes Carwood’s hand, focusing his eyes there. Finally, he says, “Just because you still love me doesn’t mean there’s room for me in your life anymore. I’ve had a lot of time to think about this, and I… I don’t want you to feel obligated.”

Carwood feels sick. “Is that what you’ve been thinking about? Everything that’s— _whatever’s_ happened to you all this time—and that’s what you were thinking about? Coming home to me leaving you?”

Ron smiles wryly, shaking his head. He brings Carwood’s hand up to his face and presses his lips to it once, twice, lingering for a long moment like Carwood might disappear if he lets go. “I left you, Carwood. I didn’t come back. If there’s not a place for me here anymore, it’s my fault. And what I mean is I’ve had some time in the hospital, and a long plane ride, since I got out. There was time to think about what coming home meant.”

“Then why did I only get five hours?” Carwood asks.

“Because I couldn’t get my hands on a phone until five hours ago,” Ron tells him. He makes a face, the remnant of previous frustration. “The army has been handling this whole thing rather distastefully. The circumstances of it all are… well, they’re classified. No one wants to turn this into a publicity stunt, least of all me.”

“Classified. Which is why they were so quick to call you dead,” Carwood concludes. Ron tilts his head, noncommittal, as good as a confirmation. Carwood huffs. “Distasteful is a fucking understatement.”

“Well, they did come get me in the end,” Ron says.

“After what?” Carwood asks. His voice is quieter than he’d meant it to be. Ron looks at him, eyes dark and serious, and doesn’t answer. “Ron, after what?”

“What you’d expect,” Ron says finally. His voice is flat. “Interrogation, torture. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. They didn’t know who I was. I managed to get rid of everything that identified me, name or rank, and so it… wasn’t as bad as it could have been.”

It was bad enough. Carwood can read between the lines. “Was it the whole time? All—all those years?”

“There were long periods where they’d leave me alone,” Ron offers, as if that’s supposed to make him feel better.

“Out of the kindness of their hearts?” Carwood asks doubtfully.

Ron is a terrifyingly good liar, but not to Carwood. He shakes his head. “Interrogation tactic. Maybe they thought the isolation would break me, maybe just so I didn’t acclimate to the pain.”

Carwood can’t stand the thought of it. Clearly it didn’t break him, or at least not enough, because he’s here. But Ron, for all his introversion and lack of social skills, didn’t care for being entirely alone.

He’d never liked sleeping alone for even a night.

Carwood brings his hand up slowly, unsure of the boundaries between them for the first time he can remember. Even when they’d first started dating, they’d been friends for long enough—and blurring lines from the very beginning of that friendship—that it had just felt natural. But when Carwood brushes his fingers over the new scar under Ron’s ear, Ron just sighs and wraps his hand around his wrist. Carwood sighs too, shakier than he’d like. “I wish I’d known.”

“Why? What good would that have done?” Ron asks.

“I wouldn’t have given up on you,” Carwood says. He’s not even sure what that means, what it would have done for Ron, what it would have done for him. It’s not as if he let Ron go anyway.

“I know,” Ron says. He squeezes Carwood’s wrist. “That’s what kept me going.”

“It feels like I did,” Carwood says. “Thinking you were dead, going about my life while you were…“

Ron seems to settle a little more now that they aren’t talking about him, losing just a bit of the tension he probably hoped Carwood hadn’t noticed. He stretches an arm over the back of the couch and pulls Carwood into him. “You can’t honestly think I would have wanted anything less.”

“I know. But I’m sorry anyway.”

“Have you gotten less stubborn, or is there still no hope of convincing you otherwise?” Ron asks.

“I haven’t changed _that_ much,” Carwood tells him.

Ron’s eyes roam over his face, as if looking for the evidence of this. “No?”

“No,” Carwood says. “I’m a pretty stubborn guy.”

Ron runs a thumb over Carwood’s left hand, the ring on his finger. “That why you’re still wearing this?”

“Among other reasons,” Carwood says. He pulls at the chain around his neck, lifting it out of his shirt and over his head. He holds it out to show Ron, chain and dog tags and scratched up ring pooled together in the palm of his hand. “Still wearing yours, too.”

“Christ, Carwood,” Ron says.

“Do you want it back?” Carwood asks, feeling more tentative than he sounds.

“Yes,” Ron says immediately. But he doesn’t reach out. “I just need to know—you said you wanted me home. I’m here. But are you sure you want me to stay? If you need space, time to think about it—”

“Ron,” Carwood interrupts. “Do you need time?”

Ron stares at him blankly. “What?”

“You keep—I keep telling you nothing’s changed for me, and it’s like you’re determined to offer me an out I don’t want. If it’s because you want it—”

“It’s not,” Ron says. He huffs, closing his eyes for a moment and then blinking them back open, like he’s trying to organize his thoughts but can’t keep his eyes off Carwood. He rubs his hand back and forth across Carwood’s shoulder. Finally, he says, “Carwood, I never expected to survive. I didn’t—I never gave up, I wouldn’t be here if I had, but there were certain realities about my situation, and I accepted them. Being here is already more than I ever thought I could hope for. I can’t expect anything more. I just—I can’t.”

Carwood nods. He lays his arm over Ron’s and grips the back of his neck. “Okay. What do you need?”

“I need to hear you say it,” Ron says, the same thing Carwood had told him earlier. Maybe he should have called that one. “And so we’re clear, I want everything. I want you, a life with you, just like we planned. I just—Carwood, I need you to tell me how much I can have.”

Part of Carwood wants to immediately blurt out that he can have everything, anything to get that tentative look off his face, but instead he manages to compose himself long enough to fumble Ron’s ring off the chain and hold it out to him. Ron doesn’t take it; he offers his hand for Carwood to put it on for him. As he does, Carwood says quietly, “All of it. You can have anything from me, that hasn’t changed. Everything we planned, I—Ron, I didn’t expect to get that either. It’s not the same, I know, but I never…”

“I know,” Ron says.

Carwood takes a deep breath. “But there’s something I should tell you.”

Ron nods. “Does it have something to do with the kid in that picture behind you?”

Carwood gives a small laugh, ducking his head. “A lot to do with that, shockingly enough.”

“Is he yours?”

“He’s ours, in a way.”

…

Carwood doesn’t realize he’s dozed off until he wakes up, and Ron’s not there.

For a moment he can’t breathe. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s woken up from a dream like that, but this time it’d felt so real. Then he catches sight of Ron’s uniform draped over the back of a chair, and he makes a small sound before he can stop it.

“Carwood?” Ron calls. Carwood rolls out of bed so fast he nearly trips, rubbing a hand over his face and stumbling to the doorway. Ron is on the floor against the opposite wall, legs stretched out in front of him, obviously in a position to see Carwood in bed. He’s got Carwood’s phone cradled in his hand. His eyes soften when he sees the look on Carwood’s face, and he holds out a hand. “I’m sorry. I’m here.”

Carwood takes his hand and slides down the wall beside him, letting out a sigh as he kisses his fingers. “Yeah,” he says.

“We fell asleep,” Ron murmurs, turning his head to catch Carwood in a quick kiss. Then he looks back toward the phone, and Carwood crowds closer to see. “I woke up a few minutes ago. I was going to call Nix, but I got distracted.”

There’s a picture of Scott on the screen, four years old and grinning brightly in front of the aquarium. He was holding Webster’s hand, having grabbed it without thought, and Web was staring down at it bemusedly. Lieb had sent it to Carwood at work; it was the first time they’d taken him to Web’s favorite aquarium, and Scott had come home babbling about dolphins and otters and seals.

“You can call him now,” Carwood says.

Ron nods absentmindedly, swiping at the screen to look at the next picture, one Carwood had taken of Dick and Scott eating ice cream together, both of them with an almost identical happy smile on their face. Ron stares at it and says, “He’s probably awake.”

“Almost definitely,” Carwood says.

“It’s been a long time,” Ron says.

Carwood kisses Ron’s shoulder, closing his eyes. “It has.”

“Somehow I think you’re more forgiving than he’s going to be,” Ron says.

“You might be underestimating how much he missed you,” Carwood says.

Ron shakes his head. “I doubt that.”

“Can I stay?” Carwood asks.

“Always,” Ron says.

Neither of them consider moving to a more comfortable location. Instead Ron dials and brings the phone to his ear, and Carwood settles in deeper against Ron’s shoulder. Within two rings, he hears Nix say, “Ron?”

“How’d you know?” Ron says, tipping his head back against the wall.

“It’s three am,” Nix says. “You son of a bitch.”

Ron laughs softly. “You’re awake, too.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“I do.”

“Yeah? And that’s all you have to say about it?” Nix demands.

“Well, it’s not like I was gone by choice,” Ron says. “I would think the explanation is fairly obvious.”

“What happened?” he asks.

“Nix… not now,” Ron says.

There’s a beat. “Is Carwood there?”

“Yes,” Ron says simply. “Is Dick?”

“Sleeping,” Nix says. “Just dozed off on the couch.”

“Think Carwood’s on his way there,” Ron says. Carwood squeezes his hand, but doesn’t otherwise have the energy to protest.

Nix hums. “I don’t think he’s been sleeping that well.”

“For how long?” Ron asks. “Is he—”

“About five years,” Nix says.

Ron pauses. “Right.”

“Are you going back?”

“To the army?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Nix sighs. “Thank god.”

Carwood fervently agrees with that assessment.

There’s a long silence. The two of them seem content to simply sit on the line together, and Carwood struggles not to fall asleep. Finally, Ron says, “I’m sorry.”

And Nix says abruptly, “What the hell are you sorry for?”

Ron’s voice is hoarse. “You told me not to go.”

“I said you were an idiot for going,” Nix says.

“I knew what you meant,” Ron says. “You were right.”

“I always am,” Nix says. “Shame you had to learn that the hard way.”

Ron lets out a strangled laugh. “Understatement.”

“I’m sure,” Nix says. “Christ, Ron, if I’d known—”

“You’d have been able to do jack shit, even then,” Ron interrupts.

“You know that’s not true. Not necessarily,” Nix says. “Money talks.”

“We don’t negotiate with terrorists,” Ron says tonelessly.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.”

“You don’t really wish you hadn’t gone,” Nix says.

Ron is silent for a long moment. Then he says, “I don’t know.”

“Is it Scott?” Nix guesses.

“Yes,” Ron says. “Missing what I did, making Carwood do it alone. I did save lives over there, Nix. There are men who would be dead right now if I hadn’t gone.”

“And this way everyone lives,” Nix fills in for him.

Ron hesitates. “But the boy…”

“Is still young,” Nix says. “There’s still time.”

“I’m going to meet him tomorrow,” Ron says.

“Good,” Nix says.

“You would think after all that torture nothing would worry me anymore.”

“I wouldn’t think that, actually, but I take your point. The kid’s already crazy about you.”

“That’s what worries me,” Ron mutters.

By this point, Carwood is more than halfway asleep. He could say something, reassure Ron how much Scott is going to love him, but it seems like a Herculean effort just to open his mouth. He really hasn’t gotten solid rest in years. He hardly manages a near imperceptible squeeze of Ron’s hand. Ron still squeezes back.

Just as Carwood dozes off, he hears Nix say, “Did you come back with brain damage or something?”

Some things never change.

…

This time Carwood wakes up in bed. Ron must have prodded him there, sometime in the night when he was awake enough to move but not enough to remember it. There’s no time for him to panic, no worry that the day before had been a dream, because before he even opens his eyes he can feel Ron pressed against his side, head on his shoulder and hand tracing across his chest, and for a moment it’s like the past five years never happened.

“Awake?” Ron asks.

Carwood stretches as much as he can without dislodging Ron, and then he settles right back down with no intention of moving in the near future. He turns enough to kiss Ron’s head. “You get any sleep?”

“Some,” Ron says.

“So not a lot,” Carwood surmises. Then he backtracks. “I mean, assuming your sleeping habits haven’t gotten any better.”

Ron shakes his head. “Worse, actually.”

“Might’ve guessed,” Carwood says softly. He’s doing his best not to shy away from why that would be, but it’s not the easiest thing to think about. Ron kisses his shoulder and slips a hand up his shirt, rubbing his stomach like he’s trying to be soothing. That only makes it worse, Ron trying to comfort him, so he sets his hand over Ron’s and stops him. He turns his head to meet Ron’s eyes, and Ron makes a small sound before scooting up higher to kiss him.

“You still know me,” Ron tells him. “I promise, I—I’m still the same person. Maybe with a few more quirks.”

“Quirks,” Carwood repeats. He looks at him doubtfully. “Interesting way of putting it.”

“Well, you know what I mean,” Ron says.

Carwood looks away. He’s had Ron back less than twenty-four hours. Eventually they’re going to have to talk about it, more than they did last night. As easy as it’s seemed in some moments, they can’t actually pretend nothing ever happened.

And yet it seems too soon.

Until Ron makes a dissatisfied noise and says, “Carwood.”

“Mm?”

“Don’t…” And then Ron sighs, and instead of finishing his sentence he rolls abruptly to the side and on top of Carwood. He straddles his waist, pinning him to the bed with his legs and his hands around Carwood’s wrists. “Look at me.”

Carwood nods, a little breathless. Years ago his first reaction would have been to roll Ron right back, and they’d have wrestled around until more often than not it dissolved into kissing and rutting against each other until they both came. Now he can’t dream of doing anything but staring up at him like he asked and hoping he doesn’t disappear.

“Whatever you need,” Ron starts. He stops, licking his lips, and loosens his hold on Carwood’s wrists to slide his hands up his forearms. He rubs his thumbs over Carwood’s wrists and focuses his eyes there when he continues, “I’ll do whatever you need me to. Sleeping pills, therapy, hell I think Nix has a list of shrinks ready. I’ll handle my shit, okay? Just don’t…”

“I won’t,” Carwood says.

Ron laughs quietly. “Don’t treat me like I’m made of glass.”

“Right.” Carwood pulls his arms out of Ron’s grip to run his hands over Ron’s thighs. “That’s… I can do that.”

“Can you?” Ron presses. “Because I can still kick your ass.”

Without warning, Carwood flips them over and puts Ron on his back. He settles over him on his elbows, close enough to kiss him. “You sure about that?”

The look in Ron’s eyes is familiar now, fond and heated and wanting. Amused, he asks, “You did get bigger, didn’t you?”

“Exercise is pretty good stress relief,” Carwood says.

Ron runs his hands up Carwood’s arms and over his shoulders. “As opposed to the other kinds of stress relief.”

Carwood freezes.

“Shit,” he whispers.

Ron’s expression quickly turns to concern, his hands becoming soothing on Carwood’s back. “What?”

Carwood can’t take more comfort, not now. He pushes himself off Ron, clambering back until he can sit on the end of the bed and not have to look at him. Ron just follows him. He sits cross-legged behind Carwood and, slowly, rests a tentative hand on his back. Carwood can’t bring himself to shrug him off.

Instead he puts his head in his hands and says, “Fucking shit. I cheated on you.”

“Carwood—”

“When you were gone, I—”

“ _Carwood_ ,” Ron repeats, more insistently. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not.” He shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m so sorry.”

Ron inches closer and rubs a hand across his shoulders. “I think we can call it special circumstances. Ever heard of the zip code rule?”

Carwood groans. “You have to be at least a little upset about this.”

“You telling me what to do?” Ron asks mildly.

“You used to like that,” Carwood shoots back.

“Only when you were on top of me,” Ron says. He tugs on Carwood’s shoulder, but Carwood doesn’t budge. “Let’s get back to that.”

Finally Carwood looks over his shoulder at him. “Do you really want to have sex right now?”

Ron hesitates, worrying his lip. Silently, he shakes his head.

“Yeah. So we should talk about this.”

“So no sex means no kisses now?” Ron mutters petulantly.

Carwood huffs. He leans back and beckons Ron forward to kiss him softly. Ron hums happily into his mouth, until Carwood sighs. “Ron, I mean it.”

“I thought you might’ve moved on,” Ron says all in a rush. “Really moved on. Had a serious relationship or gotten remarried, hell when I saw that picture—and it would’ve been okay. I mean, it might’ve killed me for real—”

“Don’t say that, Jesus Christ,” Carwood says.

Ron reaches out and claps a hand over his mouth. “But I wouldn’t have blamed you, because if I _was_ gone for good, that’s… what I would want. So this is… not that I _like_ the thought, but I would want to know someone was taking care of you.”

“I don’t need—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Ron says, all fond exasperation. “Tell me who you’ve fucked.”

Carwood reels back. “What?”

“You want me to deal with it? This is how I deal,” Ron says. “I need to know.”

“All right,” Carwood says slowly. “The first was about two years ago. Kitty kept pestering me to let her set me up, and I…”

“You said yes,” Ron prompts him. He’s uncharacteristically patient, and Carwood wonders if it’s because he’s not all that eager to hear about this.

But he asked, so Carwood says sheepishly, “I let her set up a dinner, and halfway through the appetizers I had to go cry in the bathroom.”

Ron’s mouth parts, eyes widening. He can’t seem to decide whether to laugh or frown. “Carwood…”

“You can laugh,” Carwood says. Ron presses his lips back together so he doesn’t smile and shakes his head, eyes warm with affection. Carwood has to kiss him. Then he drops his forehead to Ron’s shoulder and finishes the story without looking at him. “It was the first time I went on a date with someone other than you since college. I missed you so fucking bad. So I went back to the table, and I was going to make my excuses and leave, but then she started talking about her dead husband, and I…”

“Oh, so you had something in common,” Ron says.

“Are we joking about that? Already?” Carwood asks. Ron just gestures for him to go on. “Neither of us were exactly ready for a relationship. So we fucked in the bathroom, and I never saw her again.”

This time Ron does let out a startled laugh. “You’re kidding.”

“’Fraid not.”

“I’m—you know, I am hurt.”

Carwood raises his head quickly.

Ron just gives him a mischievous smile. “On our first date I couldn’t even get you to fuck me in my car. And we’d known each other six months by then.”

Carwood rolls his eyes. “That’s because I wanted more from you.”

Ron’s smile turns sweet, and he pulls Carwood into another kiss, a longer one, and doesn’t let him go until they’re both breathless.

And then says, “Alright, I—tell me about the rest.”

“Hm?”

“The other people you—”

“Only women,” Carwood interrupts. “It was only… I couldn’t…”

“No guys?” Ron asks.

Carwood shakes his head. “I didn’t want anyone but you. Haven’t since I was twenty years old, that’s not something I can just turn off. Even with the women, I never felt great after, but it was… different enough, that I, well…”

“That you could get it up? Carwood, tell me you didn’t cry _while_ you were fucking them,” Ron teases.

It finally gets Carwood to laugh. He pulls away to finish, but Ron moves with him instead, sits on the edge of the bed behind Carwood with a leg on either side of him, resting his forehead against Carwood’s back and splaying one hand over his heart. “I didn’t.”

“Anything serious?”

“Not even close. After that first time it was all just one night stands.”

Ron blows out a long breath. “Okay.”

Carwood laces his fingers with Ron’s over his heart and bows his head. “Okay?”

“Yeah.” Ron kisses the back of his shoulder. “It’s okay.”

Carwood relaxes. He nods without a word. It isn’t the conversation he would have imagined having the first morning he had Ron back, but it feels good. It feels like moving forward.

Eventually, Ron asks, “When do we need to leave?”

“Half hour,” Carwood says. “Still nervous?”

“Best not to think about it,” Ron says.

“That’s a healthy attitude,” Carwood comments. He eases out of Ron’s arms to stand, turns to find Ron looking up at him expectantly. Then he steps back between his legs, cups his face, and Ron’s patient mask falters a little.

It’s a mask Carwood knows that he’s needed since he got back, and for the most part he hasn’t called him on it. There’s no doubt Ron isn’t quite as steady as he seems, but he’s always tended toward a _fake it till you make it_ approach, and so Carwood lets him. Ron might not be patient, but Carwood can manage it pretty well.

He doesn’t need easy; he just needs Ron. If there’s anything he’s learned in the past five years, it’s that.

Carwood runs his thumb over Ron’s cheek. “Should get ready.”

“In a minute.” Ron pulls Carwood closer and presses his face into his stomach, hugging him around the waist and taking slow, deep breaths. After a moment, he says quietly, “Tell me we’re going to be okay.”

“If you want,” Carwood manages to say around the lump in his throat. “But I think we can do better than okay.”

It’s a long time before either of them move again.

…

Once they pull up in front of Harry and Kitty’s small house a few streets over, Carwood cuts the engine and turns toward Ron, fully prepared to sit there with him until he’s ready. But of course almost before the car stops moving Ron is pushing his way out the door, because who needs time to adjust when you could throw yourself in headfirst instead.

Carwood shakes his head and follows him.

“Do you know what you’re going to say?” Ron asks.

“Gave it a little thought,” Carwood says. Nothing he’d come up with had really seemed right, but he supposes maybe there just aren’t words for this kind of situation.

“I’ll wait here,” Ron says.

It’s about exactly as hard as Carwood would have thought to walk away from him. Somehow he manages.

The door opens before he can even knock, and Kitty goes flying past him without so much as a hello. He’d texted her the plan before they left this morning, that Carwood would explain things to Scott in the house while they caught up with Ron outside, if they didn’t mind. This was about what he’d expected from her when she’d agreed.

Harry moves a little slower. Eyes on Kitty’s stride breaking as she gets closer, he says, “So I talked to Dick this morning.”

“Yeah? Offended you didn’t get a call last night?” Carwood asks. He’s watching Kitty say something they can’t hear to Ron. She slows down dramatically, but doesn’t come to a real stop, pacing toward him until he nods. Then she flings herself into his arms, and Harry snorts.

“Well, we get the first visit, so I guess it evens out.” Finally he looks at Carwood, tearing his eyes away from Kitty touching Ron’s face and his hair and, Carwood would bet money, telling him he needs a haircut. Harry looks as serious as Carwood’s ever seen him. “And I figure you two had a lot to talk about.”

It’s true; they’d talked more than they’d slept last night. Carwood still wasn’t tired at all. “Yeah. It was good. It was real good, Harry.”

“Good,” Harry echoes softly. He looks at Ron again. “He seems okay.”

“As okay as he can be,” Carwood agrees.

“Always was a tough son of a bitch.”

“You stalling?”

“Hey, fuck you. I’m trying to be sensitive or some shit,” Harry says, and that’s more like it. “I don’t want to treat him like…”

“Not with kid gloves, or he’ll kick your ass,” Carwood says.

“So Sparky’s back,” Harry sums up. He starts to bounce on his toes, clearly having used up any patience he might’ve had. “Alright—”

“One second,” Carwood says. “Scotty?”

“A perfect angel,” Harry promises. “Went down fine, slept through the night—woke up about as excited for school as he ever is, but what are you gonna do. He’s in there eating breakfast.”

Carwood looks past Harry through the open door. “Guess that’s my cue.”

“Yeah, good luck,” Harry says, the tone of his voice saying that he does not envy Carwood this conversation. He claps him on the shoulder before walking past him down the steps.

After he takes a full minute to breathe, Carwood finds Scott in the kitchen.

His boy perks up when he sees him, which makes him feel a little guilty for being so focused on Ron. It’s like the two of them spent the night and the morning in their own world. And Scotty’s slept over here often enough with no problems that he probably didn’t even notice anything different, but to Carwood it somehow feels like a lifetime has passed.

“You’re here!” Scotty exclaims, spoon dropping into his cereal bowl, pushing back his chair to scramble out of it. “I thought Aunty was taking me to school.”

“You think I could go twenty-four hours without seeing you?” Carwood asks teasingly. Scotty laughs, and doesn’t even protest when Carwood picks him up for a hug, which would usually be met with stern reminders that he’s not a baby anymore. Still, he starts squirming after Carwood kisses his cheek, so Carwood sets him down and nudges him back toward his breakfast. “Did you have fun last night?”

“Won poker,” Scott tells him proudly. “And after dinner, Uncle Dick said they needed to have a grown-up talk, so Aunt Kitty took me out for ice cream.”

Nice of Dick to tell the boys about Ron. It wasn’t something Carwood had been looking forward to, if only because their inevitable worried reactions. First wondering if he was delusional, and then looking at him like he was fragile and about to start crying right in front of them or something equally ridiculous.

That he might have actually cried a few times last night is beside the point.

“Yeah? What flavor?” he asks.

“Butterscotch,” Scott says.

“As usual,” Carwood says fondly. “What’s going on at school today, anything special?”

Scott shrugs. “Don’t think so.”

“Funny, I don’t have anything special going on at work either,” Carwood says. “I was thinking maybe we could skip it.”

“No school?” Scotty asks hopefully.

“Yeah. Yeah, I figured we could just hang out instead. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

…

Ron, Harry and Kitty are all sitting in the grass, passing a cigarette between them that Kitty puts out when she sees them coming. She makes to stand, but Carwood shakes his head. Scott had confidently declared he wanted to meet Ron, but he was still clutching the back of Carwood’s shirt and half hiding behind him. He figures they can make it as casual as possible.

Carwood sits down next to Ron, but Scott doesn’t follow him.

“Scotty? Wanna say hi?” he offers, looking up at Scott standing behind him and gripping tight to his shoulder.

He stares at Ron, and Ron lets him look, watching and not saying a word, just like he’s good at. Finally, Scott asks, “Are you really real?”

“Yes,” Ron says. “Are you?”

“Yeah,” Scott say around a laugh, clearly not having expected that. “How old are you?”

Ron trades a surprised look with Carwood. “Thirty-one.”

“Even though you were dead for a little while?”

“I—well, yeah, that still counts. But I wasn’t dead.”

“Then why were you gone?” Scott asks.

Carwood cuts in, “Scotty, I told you—”

“Missing,” Scott says. “You said missing. Why was he missing? Why didn’t he come back?”

“I tried,” Ron says. “I was trying ever since I left. It just… it took a long time.”

“Why?”

“I was pretty far away.”

“Are you gonna leave again?”

“No.”

“Are you _sure_?” Scott presses.

“I’m not planning on going anywhere,” Ron assures him.

There’s a long pause, in which Scott inches around Carwood so he’s clinging to his other shoulder instead, the one closest to Ron. Finally, he says, “Can I ask you somethin’?”

“Whatever you want,” Ron says easily.

“Will you practice hockey with me? Papa’s not that good at it.”

It’s not what any of them expected to hear. Harry laughs out loud, and Kitty claps a hand over her mouth, probably to keep from doing the same thing. Carwood looks at them. “Am I being replaced already?”

For his part, Ron just smiles slowly and says, “Well, it’s been awhile since I’ve played. You might have to help me out a little.”

“I can,” Scotty says. And then he very seriously holds out his hand. And Kitty is covering her whole face by now trying not to make a sound, Harry is hiding his grin in her hair, and Carwood is just looking at Ron, who doesn’t miss a beat before he firmly shakes their seven-year-old’s hand.

Then he tilts his head toward Carwood and whispers to Scotty, “Think he’ll let us go right now?”

Scott turns to him with wide, hopeful eyes. “Can we?”

“I don’t know,” Carwood says. “Am I invited?”

“You’re driving,” Ron informs him.

“Well, that’s all right then.”

Scott looks as if he’s about to go rushing off toward the car so they can leave right now, but Carwood catches him and sends him off to get his stuff first. Kitty gestures for the pack of cigarettes once he’s gone, leaning over Harry to grab them. “He’s gonna be awhile, come on.”

“You’re good with him,” Carwood says.

Ron shrugs. “Kids always liked me, remember?”

“Never figured that one out,” Harry says.

“You never figured out how to make kids like you?” Ron asks. “You must not be doing very well at work.”

“You know, I didn’t miss that attitude,” Harry says.

Carwood and Kitty both shoot him a look, but Ron just smiles. And reaches over to steal Kitty’s cigarette. Kitty doesn’t even protest, just beams at him, and Carwood half-expects Ron to tell her to bitch at him about it like she would have before. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t say a word until Carwood returns the favor and steals it from him.

Then he looks at him, openly surprised. “Since when do you smoke?”

And Carwood pauses. He looks down at the cigarette in his hand. “I guess I don’t anymore.”

Slowly, without bringing it to his lips, he hands it back.


End file.
